


Chrysalis

by osprey_archer



Category: Obernewtyn Chronicles - Isobelle Carmody
Genre: Denial of Feelings, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 18:40:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1097339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Rushton would not let us clear out your room,” Ceirwan had told me, looking at me with such a speculative light in my eyes that I had clamped fiercely on my thoughts. But although I could keep my thoughts from drifting loose for a farseeker to pick up, I could not keep myself from remembering Rushton’s voice when I first saw him after my return: </i>Ah, Elspeth, love.</p><p>After her return at the end of <i>The Farseekers</i>, Elspeth struggles with her feelings for Rushton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chrysalis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thursday_Next](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thursday_Next/gifts).



By the time that I hurried up to my tower room, I could hear the musicians already tuning their gitas for the moon fair. I was running late, but how could I help it? After the soldierguards fled Obernewtyn, tricked into believing that we had the plague, we had arranged the moon fair very quickly. Between planning the fair and fending off questions about how I had survived the winter, I had barely had time to breathe. 

Fortunately, it would not take me long to dress. I had only one gown suitable for the moon fair: the gown I had worn for the moon fair before. It was traditional to have new clothes for the moon fair, but of course I had none. Everyone had thought me dead until Gahltha and I walked out of the mountains a few days before. 

Indeed, I was lucky that I still had my old clothes. “Rushton would not let us clear out your room,” Ceirwan had told me, looking at me with such a speculative light in my eyes that I had clamped fiercely on my thoughts. But although I could keep my thoughts from drifting loose for a farseeker to pick up, I could not keep myself from remembering Rushton’s voice when I first saw him after my return: _Ah, Elspeth, love_. 

I was glad that I still had my tower room. The room was as much home to me as Obernewtyn itself: the diamond-paned windows overlooking the mountains, the comfortable chair where Maruman liked to curl up before the warm fire. I loved the room; and yet thinking of Rushton’s part in keeping it for me made my cheeks heat. 

I propelled myself to the wardrobe, as if physical movement could move me away from my thoughts, and firmly focused on dressing. I was guildmistress: I could not be late to the moonfair. 

But before I could even remove my trews, a knock sounded at my door. “Elspeth?” 

It was Maryon. “I mun talk to you,” she said. 

My whole body went as taut as a gita string. “Is it a prophecy?” I demanded, more harshly than I meant to. 

“Nowt a prophecy,” she said, with a gentleness that made me ashamed. It was not her fault that her prophecies had led to Jik’s death. “I bear a gift,” she said, and when I opened the down, she held out a parcel wrapped up in a sheet. 

But instead of handing it to me, she came into the room and unwrapped it herself. I saw a quick flash of rich green as the wrapping fell away, and then she took it up in both her hands and held up a dress. 

I almost gasped at its beauty: dark green, almost shimmering with the thick pile of the velvet. I brushed the back of my hand against it, marveling at its softness. 

“Maryon,” I said, amazed. “When did you have time?” 

“I saw,” Maryon said simply, and I felt the vague tremor that I often felt when she spoke of seeing me. Had she seen the Agyllians? “I dreamed of you walking out of th’ mountains,” she continued. “But I did nowt speak to any of what I saw, for dreams are nowt always prophecies, and if you did not return, it seemed an evil thing to raise hopes. But I made th’ gown, just in case.” 

She draped it over my hands. I had not expected the weight of the yards of velvet, and almost dropped it in surprise. “Thank you, Maryon,” I said. “It was very kind of you.”

“It was needful,” she replied, in the distant voice that said perhaps this _was_ a prophecy, after all; and then she drifted out of my room again. 

I stared after her for a moment, baffled. 

But there was no time to think about it now. I quickly took off my trews and shirt and put on the thick velvet dress, doing up the tiny jet buttons that lined the front and shaking loose my long dark hair. The babble of the crowd gathering for the moon fair drifted through my window. It would be starting soon. 

I ought to hurry down at once, but I paused instead to look at myself in the mirror. I thought only that I should admire Maryon’s handiwork. But when I saw myself reflected in the glass, I could only gape. It reminded me forcibly of the dress I had worn in the Druid’s encampment. The dark green seemed to deepen the green of my eyes and lighten the pallor of my skin. Thin as I was from my winter in the mountains, it clung to what curves I had and seemed to make me taller still: no longer the scared girl who had arrived at Obernewtyn almost three years before, but a woman grown, lovely and mysterious.

In the Druid’s encampment, I had half-wished that Rushton could see me in such a dress. Now he would, but the thought gave me no pleasure. I felt an unease, growing toward an unreasoning terror as I stared at this strange vision of myself in the mirror. I stepped away from my reflection. The heavy skirt swished around my ankles, and another thought struck me: now that the Agyllians had healed my feet, I could dance. I might dance with Rushton. 

Swiftly I undid the little jet buttons, letting the dress fall at my feet. It was unfair to Maryon, who had worked so hard on the dress; but I could not wear it. I could not appear before Rushton in that beautiful dress. 

I put on my old blue moon fair dress instead, my fingers uncertain on the buttons. After all, I assured myself, it was only sensible to wear my old dress. How would I explain a new dress? I was at the center of too many prophecies, too many mysteries as it was. Let this little mystery pass away: I could wear the dress at the next festival, when enough time had passed to explain its making.

The musicians on their gitas had begun to play the opening song. I ran my fingers through my hair and left the room, leaving the green velvet dress in a puddle at the floor. 

As I hurried out onto the lawn, Rushton’s eyes sought me on the staircase. I felt my steps slowing under his gaze, and I had the queer feeling of watching myself from a height as I walked. Even without the green dress, it was the stately walk of a woman. 

Rushton stood at the bottom of the stairs, and for a moment we were so close that I could have reached out to touch him. I had the odd urge to reach out and stroke his arm, as I had stroked the velvet dress earlier. But instead I nodded to him gravely, then hurried to take my seat at the Farseeker table, my heart thumping as though I had been running. 

For a moment more, I could feel his gaze on me. But then Rushton turned his eyes to the assembled Obernewtyn crowd. The music stopped, and all the denizens of Obernewtyn let out a spontaneous cheer that brought tears to my eyes. _This_ was my home: we had saved it from the soldierguards, and here we would be safe. 

When the cheering stopped, Rushton took a lit candle in both hands and lifted it. The flame guttered slightly in the wind, and for a moment I could not breathe, thinking it might go out. 

But then it flared strong and true, as strong and steady as Rushton himself. “I am the Master of Obernewtyn,” he said. “Who among you will choose a guild this night?”


End file.
